


high in the sky (passed down like folk songs)

by andorjyny



Series: cait's desperate attempt to let these kids heal 'verse [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/F, F/M, First Love, also also also my agenda of injecting folklore/evermore into jyn erso's life, also also my agenda of not fridging girls, also my agenda of not respecting canon, furthering my agenda of queer jyn, had enough tragedy in 2020 tyvm, minor Bodhi whooping Cassian's ass at sabacc, minor Jyn/Hadder, musings on ~love~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andorjyny/pseuds/andorjyny
Summary: Jyn reflects on her first love.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Jyn Erso/Maia (Star Wars: Rogue One)
Series: cait's desperate attempt to let these kids heal 'verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2158386
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	high in the sky (passed down like folk songs)

**Author's Note:**

> Is in the same 'verse as will wait for you (whenever you need) but can absolutely be read on its own.

"Your turn, Jyn. First love?" Bodhi asks one night while she watches him swindle Cassian out of house and home in a tipsy game of sabacc (back pay, so he'll get it when they win the war.)

(and they _will_ win the war. she believes that now.)

If anyone had asked her that when she'd first met them, she would have answered them with a punch in the mouth. But she would have thought of Hadder, and she probably wouldn't have stopped for a while. Cassian knows that story as well as any other living person. Knows how it ended.

She feels his eyes on her.

But lately, she's been thinking differently about a lot of things. For a lot of reasons.

/

In her Partisan days, it was always Maia and Jyn, those two little soldier girls running around Saw's cadre, fending off boys with crushes and holding hands in between meals and missions, when Magva slept and Codo wouldn't annoy them, and giggling and whispering like a couple of kriffing schoolgirls who didn't know how to kill an enemy twenty different ways.

Maia was a charmer, kinder than anyone deserved, and that fueled her fight. Looking back, Jyn thinks she was one of the first people to teach her that kindness and closeness aren't weaknesses - especially when there is so much risk of losing everything, these things can be such strengths.

Maia had dark hair she wore in a simple plait down her back, earthy dark eyes and copper brown skin, freckles and too much history for a sixteen-year-old, but she called _Jyn_ pretty - boyish, scrawny Jyn with her hair cropped close.

"When the war's over, where do you wanna go?" Maia asked one night, tongue loosened and skin flushed from sun and the vile rotgut Jyn'd nicked from one of the older teens. Jyn rolled her eyes and smiled despite herself.

In those days, before Tamsye Prime and the Pontas and hunger like she'd never known, it was easy to dream of winning, just her and the others, knuckles bloodied and the Emperor cowering before Saw, begging for mercy.

But the great wild afterwards? Even now, it is hard to fathom. Though it gets easier every day, with each win.

(The Emperor and his enforcer dying has definitely an impact on Rebel morale).

She never answered Maia back then. "Where would you go?" she replied instead before tossing back her drink, not willing to say what she knew to be truth - she'd go wherever home was because home had never, ever been a place for her.

"Somewhere alive," Maia said, looking every bit the child she was. "Somewhere with snow and mountains and blue moss in the warm regions and trees taller than the Kashyyyk wroshyrs, even! Like back home, but warmer. And without the factories."

"That sounds nice," Jyn said. And it did.

"Abuelito always sang this kind of silly song about some girl living up near the peaks, how sweet her fingers are or something," Maia started to hum.

"You sing nicely."

"Well, if you think so, we could share a place there. Maybe not up that high, but I'd sing it to you. Teach you the words."

"I'd like that." Her heart raced as their eyes met in the dim light. Maia bit her lip. Jyn felt her ears burn. "When we win the war."

Jyn leaned in, on a whim or a hope. She paused just shy of a kiss. "Yeah," Maia breathed, before she closed the distance between them.

Only a few short days later, Jyn was homeless and starving on Tamsye Prime, another bunker and another broken heart.

/

"Her name is Maia," Jyn tells Bodhi, kyber pendant warm against her skin under her shirt. Despite what Magva told her on Jedha, Jyn knows Maia is alive. She'd feel it, like she'd felt Lyra and Galen and Saw and the Pontas.

In the center of the room, Chirrut meditates and Baze sits beside him, absently scratching behind his grandcat Hela's ears. Kaytoo grumbles about cat fur getting in his joints, but he also fills her food bowl just a tad bit higher than normal.

That night, she presses her cheek into Cassian's sleepshirt, soft from years of wear. He's humming something sweet under his breath, his fingers carding through her loose hair.

It sounds so familiar. She's heard him sing countless times, but she can't stop herself from wondering if, perhaps, the galaxy is truly as small as it seems.

Maybe Maia has found her way home, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes for this:
> 
> 1\. So Maia is still alive and probably serving the Rebellion in some other way idk. I know she canonically dies but I hc her as a girl of color so I doubly disinterested in killing her off for Jyn's storyline. Lux Bonteri idk him. Call this revenge for Steela. Also yes, Maia and Cassian are singing the same song - I will leave any further interpretation up to y'all.  
> 2\. I have a sequel to will wait for you in the works, set on Fest. Hela the cat and her love/hate relationship with Kay features there, but I felt like throwing her a bone (so to speak) in this ficlet for ~self-indulgent reasons.  
> 3\. literally all of this is self indulgent loll like queering Jyn and also queering her friendship with Maia is peak bi culture. idk man I don't make the rules.  
> 4\. this is literally going to be for like five people LOL but i hope all five of you enjoyed it.


End file.
